But when the old phone gets its final resting place in the cupboard, I want it to be in the original box.
This is what I do, along with a few other devices I’ve owned. Sometimes I’ve been able to give perfectly decent devices away to friends/coworkers/family who had a sudden problem with theirs and have a hard time affording a new one.
But unlike the old video game consoles that I do the same thing with, I am always a bit worried about long-term storage of devices that use lithium ion batteries. I know failure rates are rare but I’ve heard the horror stories and I know the risk increases each time I take another device and put them back in a box up on the shelf.
Hopefully some day, people will look back and laugh at us using lithium ion batteries like we laugh at lead paint, nitrate film, and asbestos.
Give away, repurpose, or resell. This is the right way. I myself only purchase used phones. No need for perfectly usable devices to become electronical waste.
Exactly.
When it comes to phones at least, I also try to keep mine for as long as possible because there’s honestly no point in upgrading just for the heck of it. Companies don’t release meaningful “must have” features anymore like they did back when people felt it was normal to upgrade every couple of years. No need to contribute to e-waste when it can be avoided.
I’ve been using my current phone for 4 years now, and the phone I had before that I used for 6. I upgraded only because I received the newer one for free from work, but I gave my previous phone away to a friend who needed one because I wasn’t going to throw away a perfectly good phone that I was happily using just fine a few months prior. Sure, the battery life was no longer quite as good, but I didn’t really care (nor did my friend) because we at least remember the days where you were lucky if your phone made it more than 8 hours on a single charge. You just learn to deal with it and bring a spare charger if you’re planning to be out for a while.
Heck, by the looks of it, companies are just making the newer models worse and worse without actually adding anything. They’ll have to tear my current phone out of my cold dead hands.
Essentially giving it proper funeral it deserves
When I sell my 5 year old flagship phone I’ll get $30 more easily if I have the box and the stuff that came in it. People see that and subconsciously think “this person has their shit together. buying their used phone isn’t a risk.”
Same goes for other stuff, too. I recently sold a synthesizer for $150 over the market rate because I had the box, manual (even though it was out of date due to firmware updates) and the stickers that came with it.
I like semi up-to-the-minute tech, so keeping things in good shape and giving someone the unboxing experience keeps my costs down at the cost of a little space in my closet.
+1 to this- I was about to comment the same thing before I saw your comment. Phones with packaging definitely sell better.
What no. What? No.
ಠ_ಠ
…i second this…
NEVER!
Hey it actually helps if you ever want to resell it. Prices around the same which listing are you going to pick? The one of some reseller who has the same generic photo or the one with the complete box and even the original cable still sealed in it?
It’s always sensible to keep the boxes for the stuff you’re currently using. If you sell something, it’ll fetch a better price with the original box. If you give it away, the recipient will also appreciate it more. Just make sure to throw out the boxes from stuff you haven’t had around in ten years. Don’t ask me how I know.
But where will I keep my assorted lengths of wire, tiny drill bits, and interesting mineral formations?
This.
Also useful for warranty/returns.
For larger items like TVs, there’s specialized packing material, which if used correctly, can better protect the TV from damage during a house move.
There’s a lot of good reasons to keep this stuff… Just, put it in a closet somewhere and forget about it. Every time you add anything to the collection, go through what you have and throw out any boxes for things you no longer own. Maybe they were damaged, maybe they were stolen, who knows, but if you’re adding to the pile, something can very likely be taken away from the pile too.
Just, put it in a closet somewhere
Sure.
In the house I can’t afford
Sounds like a gen Z problem I’m too gen X to understand.
Sold my old electronics at easily a 20% premium because I had all the box and packins. My xbox with the box, materials, and everything (all nicely cleaned) sold for more than I paid for it - inflation being what it is, that was quite nice.
So, this is poor advice.
Since I am Gen X I can safely ignore this and sit comfortably on my throne of old phone boxes.
You have a cupboard with every console of the 90s and 00s stuffed back into the box awaiting Ragnorak right? Plus maybe some original Game + Watches.
What a nonsensical stereotype.
They’re in the attic.
I got my GCON-45s back the other day. I’m honestly tempted to see if the CRT still works for a bit of Point Blank 2.
I have an Atari 2600, a non functional ColecoVision consol, an IntelliVision II, my original Nintendo Entertainment System, original green screen GameBoy, original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One S, Playstation, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS Lite, as well as boxes of games for all of the above. I unfortunately sold my Nintendo 64 to buy a girlfriend a tatoo (yes dumb and horney) so I no long have that and yes I am sad about it.
Since I always keep stuff forever, I’m not sure I can comfortably sit on the 6 phone boxes I’ve accumulated in my lifetime.
I believe in you
But that’s where I keep the little pokey thing that I use to open the SIM card tray!
You mean your paper clip?
I put my phone back in its box when I upgrade. It’s like a little phone coffin…
Sounds like a good way to fuel a fire when the battery eventually expands and explodes
Aren’t batteries pretty harmless when not used? It just slowly discharges and loses all its energy so it doesn’t have any left to explode.
Reselling old but functional deveices in the original box
Not a fan of of just throwing things away
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. I will have a use for the box one day.
- mouse coffin
- store cool dried flowers
- drugs
- smaller boxes
I could go on
Go on
Mine has phone repair tools in it
Not entirely true.
Several times aIready I have been glad having kept them when I had to return devices because of warranty stuff.
So it makes sense to keep the boxes for half a year or so.
Real problem is, in reality I still have smartphone boxes dating from 2005 lying around which I am just too damn lazy to sort out… 😒
you don’t need the original box for this, I usually throw it away after a month (the delay for full refund in some shop)
Much easier to send back and no discussions about completeness.
Full refund period over here is 2 weeks, but very customer friendly warranty regulations after that.
You don’t have a smartphone box from 2005.
Still severely lacking in features that define a smartphone.
You are somewhat right, I just looked up the phone I was thinking about, it is from 2006.
Which phone? The word “smartphone” has been bandied about since the nineties, but 2007’s iPhone was really the first of the species we now typically refer to as “smartphones.”
Siemens EF81.
Feature-wise roughly comparable to the first IPhone.
Internet/Mail/Office stuff, installable apps, multimedia and camera, gaming.As you already said, smartphones have been around since the late 90s/early 00s, with constantly increasing functionality. Even if people today wouldn’t directly recognize them as such, as the typical formfactor has changed during the late 00s.
No full Internet access, extremely limited selection of applications solely provided by the vendor, keypad input. Cameras and audio playback were already standard on cell phones by then. Definitely wouldn’t call that a smartphone.
My Motorola Razr Maxx V6 from 2006 was better and smarter than the original iphone in just about every way except screen size. It ran Java applications that I downloaded and could do things like copy and paste text from one text message to another (something that the iPhone couldn’t do when it was released). I could surf the web (what there was of it that would display on any phone) and even talk on the phone or listen to mp3s at the same time I surfed. I even had a secondary camera for selfies and video calling (not that I had anyone to call who also had video calling).
The original iphone was revolutionary, but it wasn’t really because of its features, it was actually a pretty mediocre phone for the time, but it broke the strangle hold that mobile networks had on your phone and its features. Plus it also provided a single platform for 3rd parties to supply software allowing everyone to stop chasing not just each and every phone but each and every variation of each phone at each mobile provider.
Ffs, at the time the iPhone was introduced to Motorola had 11 different and unique operating systems that they were supporting and putting on their different phones worldwide.
The things that made the first “smart phone” revolutionary weren’t really in what it could do, it was more about who controlled what it could do.No full Internet access, extremely limited selection of applications solely provided by the vendor
That’s not true. Full internet access, also for installed apps and unusual protocols, and any app supporting the right Java features could be installed (I had some OSS ones and even ones out of the competing Nokia store - I think they had a nice calculator app…)
Actually, these points would apply much more to the IPhone 1, as you could only install apps from their store and it had crippled connectivity (vividly remember a friend who had it constantly complaining about the speed because of missing UMTS, among other things).
You are right insofar, as I would not tread it as a smartphone by todays standards.
But neither would l tread the IPhone 1 as one.
And yet both were in 2007.
Standards change… 🤷♂️Like its contemporaries, that phone only had limited support for websites, handling only those that presented XHTML-MP.
The iPhone pretty clearly revolutionized the whole market, with the App Store opening the following year.
Every time I throw out a box i have to end up returning the item for some reason and then I’m screwed
Those boxes are VERY useful when you’re buying a new phone by trading in the old one. Keep them.
I’m poor, I will keep my phone until it breaks down
But it’s better built than the phone is.
